


8 pm fondness

by dimplemono (renegxde)



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Coffee Shops, Fluff, Gen, Pining, Shop Owner!Jinyoung, Strangers to Lovers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-08-07 20:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16415774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renegxde/pseuds/dimplemono
Summary: Jinyoung's fond of the coffee from the place across the street and maybe he's fond of you, the owner of the coffee shop too.genderneutral readerREWRITTEN





	8 pm fondness

Jinyoung knows he has to cut back on caffeine if he wants to live past the age of thirty. And maybe getting a triple shot espresso at 8 pm isn’t the best of ideas. The long evening shifts he’s forced to pull aren’t much fun either though, and business  _is_  pretty much dead, but he can’t afford to close up early. And okay  _maybe_  he should switch to tea, but then he wouldn’t get to talk to the cute barista at the coffee shop across the street. And  _that_ , would be a real loss. His excursions to the shop are pretty much the only thing keeping him alive during evening shifts.

You are always so nice and friendly, it doesn’t matter if it’s 9 am or 10 pm you are just always always forthcoming and friendly to customers. You own a coffee shop that similarly to Jinyoung’s struggles under the pressure of making it. A few years ago the city had built a massive mall two blocks away and since most of his money was tied to his shop he couldn’t just up and leave. So he was stuck working ungodly hours, sustaining himself on instant ramen and bitter coffee and clinging to every customer that did come to his shop. You had similar struggles but you shop fares slightly better than Jinyoung’s. Good coffee’s simply in higher demand that handmade and customisable perfumes.

When Jinyoung once again realises he has stay at the shop until 9 pm, which means another night of cup noodles in the storage room with his pimply teenage part timer, and another night spent on the lumpy couch in the backroom of his shop he decides he needed a cup of coffee. 

Wonderful, bitter, rich, dark coffee. And maybe a sweet, radiant smile from you. If he’s being honest he looks forward to the latter more than to the coffee.

When you had first set up your coffee shop across from Jinyoung’s he’d done the “neighbourly” thing and gone to introduce himself. He’d bought you a basket of pastries and had smiled his most charming smile as he welcomed you to the neighbourhood. Admittedly, your heart had skipped one or six beats at his smile. And over the course of the past three years you’d become… maybe not friends since you only really spoke about business and what a hassle that mall was, but you were more than just friendly acquaintances. Somewhere between the two, was a grey area in which you lived your relationship with Jinyoung.

He crosses the street that separates your shops, hunching over against the bitter howling December wind. He leaves his part timer in charge for a half hour, trusting them not to burn his livelihood to the ground. He opens the heavy glass door to your shop. The little copper bell you’d fixed above the door rings, a tinkling sound that somehow fits perfectly with the shop’s atmosphere.

You are a bit obsessed with making the place cute and cosy while keeping it functional and minimal. Wooden boxes are used as shelves and storage spaces. The wall behind the counter is a huge map of the world, detailing every possible coffee bean’s location known to man. Plants, big and imposing orchids, hanging plants and tiny, forgettable cacti are spread out across the shop. The shop window is the only space at which you can sit, a wooden bar table with three bar stools look directly onto Jinyoung’s shop. 

Jinyoung had deliberately been generous with his break time, he knows your shift ends around 8pm which gives him until 8:30 to talk to you and get an update on your apparently unbearable roommate. As soon as he enters the shop he the heavy aroma of freshly ground coffee beans hugs him. The shop is truly tiny, and with winter fast approaching you have to close the door to keep your employees and yourself warm. As a result, the hot steam from the coffee machines tends to condense against the windows. The humid air in the shop makes it a little too suffocating to enjoy a cup of coffee inside. But your shop wasn’t designed that way anyways. It was meant to be a simple pick up shop, which you had told him was to maximise customer numbers, especially now with the pressure of the huge shopping mall. Jinyoung studies the map, lingering for a a while over the hundreds of exotic names the coffee beans have and waits for you to come out of the storage room. Business is noticeably slower for you at 8pm and you’d just about finished closing up.

You come out from the small storage room, your shirt is a little rumpled from the day and a light sheen of sweat pearls on your forehead. Jinyoung smiles, there’s something comforting to knowing that no matter the day or the month he can be sure that you will look almost the exact same every day at closing time.

You stay behind the counter, leaning your hands on the cash register and give him a breathy “hi”, expecting him to rattle off his order that you’ve got memorised by now. Jinyoung smiles at you, his eyes crinkling adorably and if your pulse wasn’t already so fast and jumpy from lugging coffee bean bags around you know it would have skipped a few noticeable beats.

When you’d first met Jinyoung you’d been struck by how genuinely kind he was to you. No doubt he was a touch strict, conservative even and wanted things done a very specific way (you’d caught his poor part timer taking the brunt of Jinyoung’s perfectionism too many times to keep count). But you also saw how kindly Jinyoung had explained to him how he wanted certain things to be done. You remember how wide he’d smiled at you when you’d first set up your shop. And you remember how every day since your heart beat just a little faster for him when he did something that caught your eye. Whether it is bringing you the smallest cactus imaginable to add to your rural garden or bringing you an exceptional blend of tea, he’d always manage to make your pulse quicken. Every time you notice something different about him you can’t help but fall just a hair’s breadth more in  _like_  with him. Which means that after three years of weekly, sometimes daily interactions you are maybe not in love with him as you still know very little about him but you definitely feel for him.

And Jinyoung had always noticed you, the way you carry yourself, the way you interact with some of your (very) elderly regulars, the way your smile brightens a whole room. The way your eyes sparkle when you speak of something you feel passionately about, whether that be old movies, photography or just plain and simple coffee. He loves listening to you, watching your face transform as you speak of your passion, observing the little changes in your demeanour when he accidentally bumps his foot agains yours under the table but doesn’t move away even after apologising. The light squirm when he’d looked at you maybe a little too fondly, too honestly for too long a time during a conversation.

So maybe Jinyoung feels more than simply friendly towards you. Maybe he’s started to feel a fond feeling that spreads through his chest down to his toes when he looks at you. Maybe he goes out of his way to ensure he takes his break right when your shift ends. Maybe, he’s feeling a little more than just like. And just  _maybe_ , one of these days he’ll finally pick up his courage and ask you out. 

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [tumblr](https://goldenmahnae.tumblr.com/)!!!!


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